Women can SO be cosmic-scale power hungry bitches
Scipio at Absorbascon, who is much funnier when he sticks to being funny and not trying to “think” so hard, complains that women can’t naturally be as evil and violent as men, and they plan ahead thoughtfully, so they don’t make good supervillains. No . . . the problem is that sexist asshats are writing the comic books and they can’t imagine women are human beings with interesting complicated motivations.
He argues that women just ARE “good and cooperative with society” because it’s safer and easier and women are smarter and know how to “profit”. Men are short-sighted, don’t think, have hormonal tendencies toward aggression, and are more likely to be evil and violent. Therefore women rule the world women are boring, while male characters make interesting characters. It’s fun to read about men because they’re so stupid that they’re … fun.
In what other context would people consider it acceptable to say the equivalent of: “People need to realize that women’s capacity for evil, selfishness, foolishness, aggression, and blind stupdity is every bit as great as men’s!” That may be “equality” but I’m hard-pressed to view it as empowerment or advancement. Except in, you know, professional sports.
Exactly. Women’s capacity for evil etc. IS every bit as great as men’s. And I’ll argue it in any context you choose. I don’t think Scipio understands how and why women are socialized into being “nice” and how it functions to co-opt our labor for the rest of our lives and make us willing slaves. Can anyone say “patriarchy”? Has anyone read The SCUM Manifesto and Joreen’s Bitch Manifesto and cheered? (Hell yeah.) Instead – Scipio pulls out facts like “more men are in prison for violent crimes” as proof for his essentialist concept of gender. If I personally differ from what he seems to think is a Fact of How Women Are, then I’m the exception to a rule, I’m masculine or male-identified, and somehow by being an exception I’m proving his point. Very annoying.
The whole thing gets even more annoying in the comments. For example:
Now, women as super-heroes I have a harder time crediting. Men naturally want something to protect. Women don’t. (Not that women want to be protected, just that they don’t naturally want something to protect (besides their children, I guess ) )
Make sense much, anonymous?
And then later on another anonymous commenter mentions:
“…the inescapable fact that women’s relations with men and children involve both being inside them, making lack of empathy difficult to achieve.”
Wow. So, does this mean we can bring about social change through lots of assfucking? Bend over boyfriend, here comes utopia! Awesome!
We have plenty of examples of evil women throughout the ages – selfish, scary women who like power for its own sake, because they want to rule the world. We have tons of examples of interesting amazonish warrior women. At least I do. Apparently Scipio doesn’t.
Ragnell, Charlie, Reddread, Kalinara and others spoke up in that thread, so I don’t feel alone in being pissed off.
To cheer us all up, Karen Healy at Girls Read Comics (And They’re Pissed) is writing some great rants, like “I Am Not Doing This Twice”.
This is a place for pointing out sexism in comics with white-hot rage and acid-tongued venom. I am not required to explain feminist principles, theory, or aims to you, much less endeavour to wearily soothe your ego while I explain that I don’t hate men. I am not obliged to do your homework for you.
The comments on Karen’s post went quickly from defensiveness to threats and vandalism. Dafnap summed up the “highlights” for us and then there was a vote for the three stupidest.
Karen’s take-down of Frank Miller rocked, and I loved her description of why Jim Lee’s cover of Black Canary is cool:
Yes, cheesecakey costume. But also! Strong martial arts pose! Snarly face! Implication of kickbuttery! This is a Canary who is visually active, not passive – subject, not object.
Exactly. And wow, I’d love to see Karen and also Kameron Hurley of Brutal Women take on Absorbascon’s annoyingly stupid gender essentialism.
i probably shouldn’t even say this, but … the only men — er, males—stupid enough to say such things about women are the ones who don’t know any women. shock and awe that you find them in comics fandom.
The scary thing is that I can imagine a guy like this being the sort of person who took a women’s studies class at a liberal arts college. In that class, he learned that women are peace-loving — enveloping rather than penetrating. And that’s why they never commit crimes, start wars, or turn into supervillains. This isn’t a guy who doesn’t know women. It’s a guy who knows stupid women.
Reading the title of this post, I immediately thought of the BBC science-fiction series “Blake’s 7″.
Servalan. Better supervillain than in any comic book I’ve ever read.
“Therefore women rule the world women are boring, while male characters make interesting characters. It’s fun to read about men because they’re so stupid that they’re … fun.”
You know, I don’t mind that choose to disagree with things I say.
But MAKING UP things and telling people I said them is unacceptable. Like most of the objecters, you are reacting to some previous argument you’ve had with someone else or to some perceived societal injustice, rather than to anything I myself have said.
Yes, there are inherent behavioral differences between men and women. I daresay 99% of people realize and accept that, not as some sort of societal problem to be solved, but simply a reality. If, for some political reasons of your own, you choose to believe otherwise, that’s your pleasure then.
I understand that many feel that natural differences between men and women have been used as an excuse for societal injustice against women, something that I too deplore.
But willfully denying any differences as a way of stopping that is disingenuous at best.
I hope that some day you learn that equality of opportunity for women (or anyone else) is not conceptually dependent on denying their uniqueness (whether their differences from men be perceived as “good” or “bad”). Not realizing that is the root of pushing gay people to “act straight” and black people to “act white” to access their equality of opportunity.
Your website has been so incredibly rude as to put words like “think” in quotations when speaking of me. You have attempted to dismiss me as some sort of sheltered fanboy rather than bolster your assertions that there are no biological bases for any differences in male/female behavior. You have charged my female acquaintances with being stupid (for not holding your views, I assume). You seem unable to discuss important matters without swearing and personal invective.
All this, even though I was polite enough NOT to point out on my own blog that the person from your website explaining to me most aggressively that there are no natural differences between men and women, Charlie Anders, is apparently a man who had transgendering surgery to become more like a woman. Comic book irony, indeed.
Given all that, I request that you remove your hypocritical link to my website, since you have deemed me, as a mere thoughtless man, fit only to be your court jester, whose “thinking” does not meet your political standards.
Henceforth, I suppose, I should remain silent and barefoot in the kitchen until called upon by you to be “funny” instead of “think”.
Yup, I’m a tranny. I’m not sure how that invalidates my views on gender issues, exactly. I do believe that gender roles are largely socially constructed, and a matter of performativity rather than something hard-wired. The more time I’ve spent as a woman, the more I’ve been impressed by the diversity of women. Female behavior is just as multi-faceted and unpredictable as, well, human behavior. The point we’re trying to make, which you seem to be missing willfully, is that you can’t argue that women are nicer or more “thoughtful” than men, without also ascribing the flipside of those qualities to men. In other words, men are more impulsive, which means they’ll leap into action while women are dithering. Which is why men are “naturally” in charge of everything and women are “naturally” running the HR department. My friend Lisa Jervis just wrote an awesome essay about “essentialist feminism” in which she decries the idea that women are naturally nicer than men. I’d highly recommend reading it, it’s online at http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/featjervis_femmenism_p.htm
Yay, Servalan! I love Servalan. In fact I’ve been toying with the idea of writing Blake’s 7-Kushiel’s Dart fanfic where it turns out that Melisande and Servalan were secretly the same person…
I love how this guy’s defense of his position is to trash trannies. But then again, I guess that’s OK because men are “naturally” more likely to be bigots since they leap to conclusions more quickly than women.
Scipio: I didn’t say there’s no biological basis for differences between men and women. I’m annoyed that you use your gender essentialism as proof that women in fiction can’t be interesting focal points of a story — you argue not even that women characters aren’t interesting often enough, but that they can’t be.
Also: My feminist rage does not actually oppress you. For example, I mocked your claim that men think less than women, and you equate that with being silenced and told to stay barefoot in the kitchen. Your rhetorical appropriation of women’s oppression is a good example of what Andrea was talking about here:
Don’t Use the Language of Opression Against Minorities.
And yet you talk as if my rudely calling you a jerk is worse than all of patriarchy! Who knew my rudeness could be so scary and powerful. I guess I should keep up with the filthy-mouthed ranting then!
I have trouble keeping my temper enough to go into how you sniped about transgenderedness in your own blog comments, and how you expect a huge back-patting and free pass for doing it in a way you consider polite. The way you talk about transpeople shows your ignorance and your own brand of rudeness — despite your not cussing and your “facts” you’ve just been a grade a asshole.
“I hope that some day you learn that equality of opportunity for women…”
This is exactly the kind of arrogant patronizing that I found so annoying in the original blog post. The only thing missing is a soothing “There, there, little lady.”
[...] So then I was reading the Absorbascon, another blog you should read, and Scipio got himself in some trouble by writing a post about why women don’t make good heroes and villains. The shit really hit the fan in the comments. It also inspired this response and this response. While reading the first post, I noticed that Karen is angry about a Birds of Prey story in which Huntress sleeps around. But these links aren’t necessarily the point of the post, either, but they did get me thinking. [...]
I think Scipio’s statement about “the person from your website explaining to me most aggressively that there are no natural differences between men and women” means that if there are actually no natural differences between men and women then what’s the point of getting the transgender surgery? I don’t think he was “bashing” trannies.
Well, there are obviously some physical differences between men and women. And more to the point, there are cultural differences between men and women. There are social differences, and it’s possible to feel more comfortable with one set of roles and expectations than with the other, without believing those roles and expectations are hard-wired by nature.
Ha ha… never have I read such a pointless waste of effort.
Some people strive to save the planet, others work towards curing desease, some struggle for their own selfish wants and some even fight, against all the odds, for equality for everyone.
Yet here you guys are, picking at each others every word because you have different opinions. Why don’t you just accept that every man and woman (and anyone in both or neither categories) are different physically and/or socially and/or culturally to absolutely everyone else. All genders have members that overlap or show extreme traits of members belonging to other genders.
You all have your own views and will most likely just go round and round in circles arguing til you’re on your death beds, realising what a waste you’ve made of your time.
…”Oh, Im critising you cos you said stuff about these types of people”…
…”Well Im critising you cos you commented on these other people”…
Well… I hate onions and tomatoes. I love a nicely cooked jacket potatoe. Why dont you spend your lives critising me because of that… or even better why not side with me because of it.
Theres a saying… “Never to argue with an idiot or an intellectual”.
Pointless dribble like this webpage just goes to show why that saying came about!
How I wish I could cure insomnia so I didn’t always end up reading rubbish like this to put me to sleep.
Hi,
I loved this entire blog, but it mentioned one thing that piqued my ear. I was wondering if you might have some advice on how I may get my girlfriend into the whole “bend over boyfriend” idea. I have been trying to work this into conversation for years now! Please HELP!!
In the first days of the Israeli-Lebanese war, one Lebanese woman, oddly more concerned with her family’s welfare than with settling scores, was heard to ask: why don’t we just return their two soldiers? (You recall the whole conflagration started with this tiny spark.) All the guys around her sputtered in angry disbelief at her ignorance.
Not a bad example to use if you’re recommending that women rule.
Could they do better than guys? Sometimes that’s not the question to ask. Rather, ask: how could they do worse?
your kind of women, only need man to do their dirty work. which with your pussy, brain power will work all the time, unless the next generation of man wakes up to it. have fun playing us. i wonder who introduced honesty care fairness bla bla bla in the gender game after all. and off course knowledge is power so this is the next big thing in women’s arsenal. i suppose if you take some more male hormon treatment’s you’ll be ready to kick man’s usses phisycally us well, good going supppper girl.
[...] Prominent Bloggers I Don’t Care For Based On Admittedly Small Sample Sizes- Don’t flame me, bros! 38. ADD- I like when he does stuff like this, but hate all of his chest thumping, manifesto crap. Guess which one got more attention in the blogosphere? Sure, I can’t be bothered to back up my characterizations of him in case he comes by to challenge me to the dreaded Arctic Shit Knife Fight To The Death (there’s a theory that that’s what killed Brusier Brody. That I just made up), but anyone who ever read Fanboy Rampage at all remembers them. And I’m just gonna ignore him if I do conjure him by mentioning his name anyway. 39. Chris Allen- Like ADD, but without the unintentional (I assume) comedy value. 40. Scipio- A few reasons: a. I’m a Marvel, he’s a DC, although I am less retarded about it, I think. b. He chose the wrong side in the Rann/Thanagar War. Really, liking Hawkman at all for any reason beyond “Joe Kubert drew him for a while” makes you an undesirable in my book. Because he sucks. Hawkgirl, I can deal with, solely because of the Justice League cartoons, in which he was her creepy stalker. John Stewart and Kendra 4-ever! Crap, I’m a ’shipper! c. Every time I read one of his posts, my brain cries in agony. Especially when it’s “in character.” d. This. So, you know, not for me. 41. Johanna Draper Carlson- We agree on nothing. And this, which pretty much destroyed her for me, at least as a one shop stop for feminism in comics, or even as a blogger worth listening to, really. 42. Mike Sterling- It’s like Marge Simpson feels about Haggar the Horrible: I just don’t think he’s that funny. He’s like Sims with the funny taken out and replaced with Swap Thing obsession and random musings on creepy comic shop motards, from what I’ve read. I’m not a big fan of his pal Dorian, either, but I’m not listing him because I quote “Subtext, What Subtext” all the time. Mostly whilst watching wrestling. Because that’s so gay it don’t even like boys. Or does. Except when it’s the WWE Divas. 43. Dirk Depppey- Because he works for Fantagraphics, he’s like my indie snob strawman. But he confirms that bias at least once a journalista, which is why I don’t read it too often, even if it is a fine link blog. 44. Tucker Stone- I liked him better when he went by Jim Treacher. 45. Jim Treacher- Wait, I didn’t like it then, either. [...]
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